Australian Federal Election: The day after

[Túrin Turambar]

It all depends on the swing seats; the ALP won the popular vote last time too, yet the Coalition got those marginals.

The Coalition won the popular vote with 52.7% 2PP in 2004. The ALP did win the popular vote in 1998 and loose the election, as did the Coalition in 1990. Still, I don’t think that this will be an issue (see below).

We shall see what we shall see; I tend to agree with Rudd that it will go down the line...for the marginals.

In general, changes of Government in Australia are decisive. Gough Whitlam only just got over the line in 1972, but 1949 and especially 1975, 1983 and 1996 saw the Opposition win easily. The very close elections, like 1961, 1969, 1990 and 1998 usually see the Government returned. As I see it, the election will only be close if Labor screws up the campaign and the Coalition scrapes a narrow win. It’s looking far more likely now that Labor will win in a landslide, gaining about 30 seats. Rudd is downplaying his chances as not to appear arrogant.

[Túrin Turambar]

Weekly update

End of week 2 – 4 weeks to go

Both sides are still campaigning cautiously. Tax and the debate fallout have dominated airwaves and newspaper columns. John Howard appeared to have some sort of spasm when questioned on Iraq, which has been a boon for TV comedians.

Another Australian soldier has been killed in Afghanistan.

The big news has been this week’s Newspoll, which has shown 2PP figures of 58-42 to the ALP. Also, there is some disunity in the Coalition ranks, with Health Minister Tony Abbott admitting that the Government was getting old, unions aren’t all that bad and maybe more could have spent on health. He may be thinking of his own campaign for his own seat of Waringah – it’s solidly Liberal, but with these polling figures no seat is safe.

Which reminds me. John Howard’s own seat of Bennelong on Sydney’s upper north shore is marginal. It’s the Coalition’s 16th most marginal seat, meaning that, on a uniform swing, it will fall with the Government (the ALP needs to gain 16 seats to win a majority). It’s rare for a PM to hold an unsafe seat, but changing demographics and redistributions have made it far more marginal than it was when Howard was first elected in 1974. Labor has also found a high profile candidate in journalist Maxine McKew to challenge him. It will probably be the most-watched contest of the night.

In 2004, the ABC did a very nice map of Australia’s electoral divisions. It’s changed slightly since then, but this is basically what we’re looking at now (set the map to ‘ABC prediction’ for the current Parliament). Note Kalgoorlie, the largest single-member electoral district in the world. The Australian has the current map, although theirs’ is static and kind of boring.

Finally, yet more musical talent coming out with this election rap from Axis of Awesome. Some people definatley have way too much time on their hands…

[solicitr]

Labor has also found a high profile candidate in journalist Maxine McKew to challenge him.

It's a bit troubling, I think, when a 'high-profile journalist' morphs easily into a partisan political candidate: it raise questions about the press' impartiality. A good reporter, it strikes me, should regard politicians of *all* stripes as somewhere between used-car dealers and pond scum, and never even consider sinking to that level. An ideal reporter should be a total cynic.

[Túrin Turambar]

Labor has also found a high profile candidate in journalist Maxine McKew to challenge him.

It's a bit troubling, I think, when a 'high-profile journalist' morphs easily into a partisan political candidate: it raise questions about the press' impartiality. A good reporter, it strikes me, should regard politicians of *all* stripes as somewhere between used-car dealers and pond scum, and never even consider sinking to that level. An ideal reporter should be a total cynic.

Perhaps, although I can’t really see a good reason why any qualified person shouldn’t be able to run for Parliament. The ABC has a reputation for left-wing bias, exacerbated by the fact that two of their journalists are now Labor candidates (the other being a weatherman running in North Sydney). Still, we know that journalists have their own political views, and there’s no evidence that the media as a whole is left-wing.

The bigger problem in my view is that party membership is now so weak as to allow high-profile candidates to be parachuted into available seats. The most egregious example is probably the seat of Boothby, in suburban Adelaide, South Australia. The ALP national executive pre-selected the wife of a footballer (some argue the trophy wife of a footballer) who, in her first interview, revealed that she wasn’t entirely sure who she usually voted for, but it might be the Liberal Party. She has subsequently shown she doesn’t know what her party’s industrial relations policy is (when it is the issue in this election) and didn’t know what a tariff was. She looks good on the posters, but the Labor vote in the seat has slumped. Adelaide’s other three Liberal-held seats are looking like fairly certain Labor gains, so Dr. Andrew Southcott in Boothby must be thanking his lucky stars…

[vison]

there’s no evidence that the media as a whole is left-wing.


Lord_M. For the luvva pete.

I thot you'd had it dinned inta yer head that it IS.

[Túrin Turambar]

It just occurred to me that I haven’t yet shared by collection of Keating quotes with this forum. Paul Keating was the Labor Treasurer of Australia from 1983 to 1991 and Prime Minister from 1991 to 1996, and was notorious for an often witty but usually very aggressive speaking style. He said most of the following in Parliament itself:

On or to John Howard, Leader of the Liberal Party (1985-1989, 1995 - ) and former Opposition Leader (now Prime Minister)

“He has all the vision of Mr Magoo and none of the good intentions”

“His Oiliness.”

"What we have got is a dead carcass, swinging in the breeze, but nobody will cut it down to replace him."

"He's wound up like a thousand day clock..."

"...the brain-damaged Leader of the Opposition..."

(Of his 1986 leadership) "From this day onwards, Howard will wear his leadership like a crown of thorns, and in the parliament I'll do everything to crucify him."

"He is the greatest job and investment destroyer since the bubonic plague."

"I am not like the Leader of the Opposition. I did not slither out of the Cabinet room like a mangy maggot..."

"He has more hide than a team of elephants."

"I do not want to hear any mealymouthed talk from the Member for Bennelong."

"The principle saboteur, the man with the cheap fistful of dollars."

“He is the classic non-deliverer of Australian politics. He is the one person who just cannot cut the mustard. The game is too hard for him. Lurking in his chest is not a heart for the political fight, but a split pea.”

"Come in sucker."

On or to Andrew Peacock, Leader of the Liberal Party and Opposition 1983-1985, 1989-1990

"We're not interested in the views of painted, perfumed gigolos."

"I suppose that the Honourable Gentleman's hair, like his intellect, will recede into the darkness."

"He represents nothing and nobody."

"You've been in the dye pot again, Andrew."

"The Leader of the Opposition is more to be pitied than despised, the poor old thing."

"The Liberal Party ought to put him down like a faithful dog because he is of no use to it and of no use to the nation."

"It is the first time the Honourable Gentleman has got out from under the sunlamp."

"...a fop such as the present Leader of the Opposition..."

"...if this gutless spiv, and I refer to him as a gutless spiv..."

"...the Leader of the Opposition's inane stupidities."

"He could not rise above his own opportunism or his incapacity to lead."

"...what we have here is an intellectual rust bucket."

On or to John Hewson, Leader of the Liberal Party and Opposition 1990-1994

“Captain Zero”

“I did not insult the Honorable Member for Wentworth. I merely implied that he was like a lizard on a rock – not dead yet, but looking it.”

“[His performance] is like being flogged with a warm lettuce.”

“He always turns around when I drop one on him. He can't psychologically handle it.

“I have a psychological hold over Hewson...He's like a stone statue in the cemetery.”

“I'm not going to be fairy flossed away as my opposite number, John Hewson.”

“This is the sort of little-boy, stamp your foot stuff which comes from a financial yuppie when you shoe him into parliament.”

“I'd put him in the same class as the rest of them: mediocrity.”

On or two Alexander Downer, Leader of the Liberal Party and Opposition 1994-1995

[over the uproar in the house] “I did not call the Leader of the Opposition a racist. All I said was that he is the silliest leader of the Liberal Party since William McMahon…”

“…idiot offspring of the aristocracy…”

On or to Ian Sinclair, Former National Party Leader and Deputy Opposition Leader

"...this piece of vermin, the leader of the National Party…"

"What we have as a leader of the National Party is a political carcass with a coat and tie on."

The famous election comeback

Hewson: [if you’re so sure of yourself] why don’t you call an election?

Keating: Oh no, Hewson, don’t think you’re going to get out of it that easily mate. I’m going to do you slowly, Hewson…

To the Member for O’Connor, Wilson ‘Iron Bar’ Tuckey

"...You stupid foul-mouthed grub."

"Shut up! Sit down and shut up, you pig!"

"You boxhead you wouldn't know. You are flat out counting past ten."

“You filthy, disgusting piece of criminal garbage!”

On or to Shadow Treasurer, Jim Carlton

"I was nearly chloroformed by the performance of the Honorable Member for Mackellar. It nearly put me right out for the afternoon."

***

Jim Carlton: "Madame Speaker, I ask that the offensive term used by the Treasurer be withdrawn."

Keating: "I withdraw it. I wouldn't hurt his feelings for quids. The fact is that the farmer..."

Allen Rocher: "On a point of order Madame Speaker; Can you please inform the house whether the Treasurer withdrew his comment?"

Keating: "Of course I did. I wouldn't offend Old Rosie over there."

Miscellaneous Insults to various members

"... the brain-damaged Honorable Member for Bruce made his first parliamentary contribution since being elected, by calling a quorum to silence me for three minutes."

"The Honorable Member has been in so many parties he is a complete political harlot."

"I will be ripping her into shreds...she can go and shoot her big mouth off in the Supreme Court. We'll see how she goes there."

"Mr Deputy Speaker, am I to be continually abused by the Honorable Member for Mitchell and the drone beside him, the Honorable Member for Braddon ?"

On or to the Liberal Party

"The Leader of the Opposition hurls all sorts of abuse at me, and all through question time those pansies over there want retractions of the things we've said about them. They are a bunch of nobodies going nowhere."

"Mr Speaker, can I have some protection from the clowns on the front bench ?"

"...for the dullard on the front bench opposite"

"Where you all come aguster is, over here we think we're born to rule you. And let me tell you this, it's been ingrained in me from childhood, I think my mission in life is to run you."

"You were heard in silence, so some of you SCUMBAGS on the front bench should wait a minute until you hear the responses from me."

"What really amuses me and almost makes me spew..."

"They have no ideas, no integrity and no ability."

“These are the same old fogies who doffed their lids and tugged the forelock to the British establishment”

"Damn them for being the cheats they are."

"You are frauds."

"...votes for coalition members who have always been cheats, cheats, cheats and will always be cheats, cheats, cheats and will always defend cheats, cheats, cheats."

"Honorable Members opposite are a joke."

"They are irrelevant, useless and immoral."

"...they insist on being mugs, Mr Speaker, absolute mugs."

"I'm not running a seminar for dullards on the other side."

"Those opposite could not operate a tart shop"

"These intellectual hoboes"

"This rabble opposite"

"...for the benefit of the blockheads opposite"

"If the dummies opposite will just shut up"

"Shut up for a moment. If you ask questions and want to hear answers, SHUT UP!"

"How thick these people are"

"These dummies and dimwits"

"Talk about desperadoes"

"These are the absolute gutter tactics of a mindless, useless, idealistic, unprincipled Opposition."

"The Opposition is such a motley, dishonest crew"

"...the cowboys on this front bench"

"It is just a slight of hand by a dingy party"

"The Opposition crowd could not raffle a chook in a pub"

"We will be rejecting the opportunist claptrap coming from the Opposition."

"Honorable Members opposite squeal like stuck pigs"

"...small time punk stuff coming from a punk Opposition."

"The animals on the other side"

On or to the National Party

"...their existence is putrid. It is absolutely putrid."

"...the cowards of the National Party, the hillbillies of the National Party…"

"...that vile constituency, the National Party, did nothing else but get its hands on the public purse."

In conversation with a journalist

Reporter: You don't talk to ordinary people!

Keating: "Who says I don't ? Who says I don't ? I mean I see as many people as perhaps anyone in public life could..."

Reporter: How long is it since you've been to Fyshwick Markets ?

Keating: "Not long, not long. In fact if you get down to woollies at Manuka on Saturday I'd probably run over you with a trolley as I did a journo recently."

On or to members of his own Party (Labor)

"Codd will be lucky to get a job cleaning s**thouses if I ever become Prime Minister."

"I'm always being attacked by delegate Walker. He's been attacking me ever since I used to touch him up in the [ALP] Youth Council 20 years ago."

On ALP MP Steven Smith:
“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up”

In a phone call with Jim Cairns after Cairns published an article critical of the Government (Cairns was well known for having a broad vocabulary that he was not adverse to showing off):
“Hello Jim? Paul here. Just saying that just because you swallowed a f***ing dictionary when you were about 15 doesn't give you the right to pour a bucket of s**t over the rest of us."

"In terms of the Labor agenda this government has left every other Labor government bare arsed. No other government even gets within cooee of it. We have a cabinet which has a degree of economic sophistication which puts the Whitlam government into the cavemen class in economic terms."

On the press

"...F***ing animals."

On Laurie Oakes -
“Laurie Oakes is a cane toad.”

To Richard Carleton -
“You had an important place in Australian society on the ABC and you gave it up to be a pop star…with a big cheque…and now you’re on to this sort of stuff. That shows what a 24 carat pissant you are, Richard, that’s for sure.”

On Fund Managers

"...these donkeys..."

"It must get right up their nose, quaffing down the red wine at these fashionable eateries in Bent Street and Collins Street, with the Prime Minister calling them donkeys - but donkeys they are."

On the Senate

“…go and take it to that unrepresentative swill…”

In conversation with then Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam

Note that this was while Keating was a junior backbencher and Whitlam was the party leader:

Whitlam: "That was a good speech. You should go back to University comrade, and get yourself an honours degree."

Keating: "What for? Then I'd be like you."

On former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser

“An Easter Island statue with an arseful of razor blades.”

On the Economy

“Stick your head out of the building in any capital city in Australia, and it's a sea of cranes. The economy is so robust that it takes a pickaxe to stop it. We're laying into it with a lump of four by two to slow it down!”

To a Student protestor

"Go and get a job and go to work like the rest of us!"

On Himself

“I try to use the Australian idiom to its maximum advantage.”

“You know me, love - downhill, one ski, no poles.”

“Leadership is not about being nice”

Finally, to John Howard in the Great Debate '96

"You're so rude!"

Addendum:

John Hewson, in an interview with Andrew Denton many years later: “But we had a very interesting experience, I had with him. As we went back to Parliament for the resumption of Parliament after the '93 election, he called me over behind one of the columns and said, "How are you?" I said, "I'm fine." He said, "No, I mean seriously, how are you? You must be terrible, you lost." I said, "Yes, well, I did better than I thought and I'll beat the hell," I actually said, "beat the shit out of you next time". He said, "No, no, you don't understand. I want to say something to you." He said, "I called you a lot of terrible names in that campaign, a lot of terrible names, and I want you to understand that I didn't mean any of them. I quite like you and I quite respect you." He said, "But you've got to understand," and I've never forgotten this, "You've got to understand, mate, that politics to me is a game and I'll say or do whatever I have to, to win." That sort of 'bastard factor', if I could use that expression, is essential to be a good leader in politics. It's something I didn't have.”

[solicitr]

We could use some of that direct, nasty honesty in the US Congress! Most Hill debate is full of greasily insincere compliments which serve merely to thicken the fug of hypocrisy.

[Túrin Turambar]

Things have gotten a little more interesting.

• Family First’s campaign against internet pornography took a blow…er, hit when one of their candidates turned up in explicit images circulating around gay pornography webrings. The capacity of the Christian Right to humiliate itself in spectacular fashion never ceases to amaze me.
• Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey admits that the Coalition is running a scare campaign against the unions, but affirms that ‘our fear campaign is based on fact’. Bryan Palmer at Ozpolitics expects this to become the most memorable line of the campaign.
• We are also trying to figure out what polling, research or focus group has got the Shadow Treasurer appearing in ads giving advice on keeping your shopping bill down.
• The Liberal Party seems to have more or less conceded defeat, and they’re now focused on mustering the numbers for the leadership contest which will follow the election if they lose. Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull seems to be gearing up for some sort of campaign against Treasurer Peter Costello. It’s probably a bit premature, though, as either or both might not even be in the next Parliament.
• Speaking of Turnbull, he recently pushed the Cabinet to ratify Kyoto as a possible votewinner. There was a fairly serious division, but the anti-Kyoto forces prevailed. The PM says he still has confidence in the Environment Minister.
• John Howard seems to be missing in action. Coalition candidates are overwhelmingly distancing themselves from him, and he hardly shows up in Liberal TV ads. For example, there’s a huge Ross Vasta (incumbent Liberal – Bonner) sign I drive past often that simply says that he’s working to get more done locally. By contrast, I see Kevin Rudd in signs fairly often, either by himself or with a Labor candidate. Looks like a bit of an every man for himself mentality among the Coalition.
• The general consensus among the Cabinet and Liberal Federal Executive is that the Government is done for.

[Túrin Turambar]

Anyone still reading this thread?

Weekly update

End of week 3 – 3 weeks to go

(halfway point in our long campaign)

• There has been no statistically significant movement in the polls, although aggregated opinion polls over the campaign suggest that there has been a catastrophic collapse in Coalition support in New South Wales and Queensland. Seats with margins over 10% are considered in play. The ABC’s calculator now lets you see how poll results would play out in the election. This means you have no excuse not to make a guess as to the result in the House of Representatives .
• Health Minister Tony Abbott has had a bad week. First he had to apologise for getting stuck into an asbestosis victim, then he was late for his debate with the Shadow Health Minister and ended up swearing at her.
• Shadow Environment Minister Peter Garrett has been having his share of moments as well, culminating in his claim that the left needn’t worry about Kevin Rudd’s apparent conservatism as Labor would change its policies as soon as it got into Government.

The ABC has put up its 2007 Interactive Map, much to my delight.

[Primula Baggins]

Still reading!

Six weeks is a long campaign? <considers emigrating>

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm still reading with great interest as well. L_M

[Túrin Turambar]

Still reading!

Six weeks is a long campaign? <considers emigrating>

The campaign has been going on unofficially for months, but the official campaign only goes from the announcement of the election date until polling day.

In the meantime, I need to decide how to vote. I live in a fairly safe Labor seat, so my vote in the House of Representatives won’t mean that much one way or the other. However, Queensland’s Senate contest will be very important and I need to give it some thought.

The Electoral Commission has just released the parties’ group voting tickets. This shows where they will direct preferences from above-the-line votes. I was planning on voting for Australia’s libertarian party, the LDP, but I’m not entirely happy with where they intend to send my vote when (more likely if) their candidates are eliminated. As such, I’ll need to vote below-the-line and number all 60-odd boxes. I need to give some thought about whether I prefer, for example, the Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party over the Non-Custodial Parents’ Party, or whether I dislike the nationalist right more than the Christian fundamentalists. It’s going to be fun.

While I decide such weighty matters, I’ll leave you to read (or ignore) my election guide.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

By general consensus, the election will be decided in three critical states – New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.

New South Wales

One voter in three lives in Australia’s most populous state, which is reason enough to pay attention to it. It also happens to have a lot of marginal Coalition seats up for grabs. New South Wales was for many years strong for Labor, but abandoned Paul Keating with a vengeance in 1996. Labor made some gains in 1998, only to loose even more seats, especially in Sydney itself, in the national security and illegal immigration-dominated election of November 2001. However, there’s two trends the Coalition can’t ignore. One is the steady creep of Labor support in the inner north-west, with Labor winning the seat of Parramatta against the Coalition swing in 2004. Now the Prime Minister’s own seat of Bennelong, to the immediate east of Parramatta, is left very vulnerable. The other high profile contest in NSW is in the east Sydney seat of Wentworth, held by high-profile Environment Minister and possible leadership aspirant, Malcolm Turnbull. It has existed since Federation and never elected a Labor member, but it has since picked up strong Labor- and Green-voting areas in inner Sydney, including Australia’s major gay community. Turnbull might get some leverage from holding fairly socially progressive views, but there’s evidence that wealthy and educated inner urban voters are turning on the Government as a whole. Mortgage-belt seats like Dobell and Robertson in Sydney’s far northern suburbs will also be fiercely contested, as will the western Sydney seat of Lindsay. It was formerly a safe Labor seat, won with a huge swing in 1996 against all expectations. With popular sitting member Jackie Kelly retiring, Labor will fight to win it back. Paterson on the coast north of Sydney and Eden-Monaro to its south are also marginal and likely to be carried by the ALP if it wins office. The latter is famous for being a bellweather – it has gone with Government in every election since 1972. The other worrying trend the growth of support for the Greens in the National Party areas in the north-east. This is mainly due to small farms giving way to hippie communes, and saw the National Party stronghold of Richmond fall against the trend in 2004. Now its two neighbours, National-Party held Page and Cowper, are vulnerable. With New England held by independent Tony Windsor, their losses will see the National Party driven from the north-east of the state. Finally, there has been some talk about the safe blue-ribbon seat of North Sydney. It would be remarkable if Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey lost his seat, but there’s some evidence that the Liberal Party’s support among the wealthy professional voters in the area has eroded, and it had a swing to Labor in 2004 against the national trend.

Queensland

Australia’s ‘Deep North’. Labor has always struggled to perform well federally in Queensland, and it has done especially poorly during the Howard years. Along with New South Wales, this state swung savagely against Paul Keating in 1996, with Labor holding only 2 of 26 seats. They now hold 6 of 28, thanks largely to a recovery in 1998, and when in Government usually break even. Therefore, there’s plenty of room for improvement, and there’s also two promising signs for the ALP. One is that Kevin Rudd himself is a Queenslander, giving a possible home state advantage (Queenslanders rarely lead major federal parties, and the last Queenslander to be elected PM was Andrew Fischer in 1914). The other is that the State Labor Government has done remarkably well in recent elections, winning landslide after landslide. The most obvious possible Labor gains are the suburban Brisbane marginals of Moreton, Bonner and Bowman. In the north, the Liberal seats of Herbert and even Leichhart (with the retirement of sitting member Warren Entsch) are also easy pickups. In north Brisbane, Petrie and especially Longman are more secure for the Liberals, but not beyond reach for Labor. To the south, the notionally safe seats of Blair (redistribution), Forde (popular member retiring) and McPherson (changing demographics) are also worth watching. Should the election go really pear-shaped for the Coalition, the National Party sugar-belt seats of Flynn (a new, and therefore open, seat) and Hinkler might fall.

South Australia

Even with their impressive 2004 win, the Coalition lost two seats in this state in 2004 (Adelaide and Hindmarsh in the state’s capital city of Adelaide). South Australia has always been a stronghold of progressive liberalism. It’s the home state of the Democrats, and its Liberal party has a libertarian streak. Many now seem to have broken from the conservative Howard Government and gone over to Labor, and current opinion polls suggest unprecedented good results for the ALP in this state. Now Labor is looking to sweep through the suburbs of Adelaide, with their sights on Wakefield, Makin and Sturt. Boothby is the other Liberal-held seat in Adelaide, but Labor is running a weak candidate and it looks like incumbent Liberal Dr. Andrew Southcott will pull through (he must be thanking his lucky stars for the Labor pre-selection panel). If South Australia really decides it doesn’t like the Coalition, then Grey, which covers 95% of the state, could be a gain. There’s rumours that John Howard begged retiring member Barry Wakelin to stay (he isn’t). Of course, every left-leaning Australian would love to see Foreign Minister Alexander Downer loose Mayo, but the swing is probably beyond what Labor could achieve.

Victoria

Victoria is Australia’s second most populous state, but doesn’t offer much low-hanging fruit for Labor. They held most of their seats against the 1996 landslide, and still hold 19 of 37 seats – not bad for the state which was once ‘the jewel in the Liberal crown’. Still, while Labor can win handily without gaining a single seat in Victoria, it can’t be ignored. Corangamite, Deakin, LaTrobe, McEwen and McMillan around outer Melbourne are all within the range of an incoming Labor Government. If there is a seismic shift in Victoria (as happened in 1983 and 1990) then keep an eye on inner Melbourne seats like Goldstein, Kooyong and even Treasurer Peter Costello’s seat of Higgins, although those three are very long shots for the ALP.

Tasmania

This small, left-leaning state provided a good deal of joy to the Coalition in 2004 when they managed to win two of its five seats (Bass and Braddon). Both are now under real threat, and Labor is likely to win them back. The Greens are also polling unusually strongly, which makes me wonder whether the open Labor seat of Franklin is in their reach. On balance, probably not.

Western Australia

Western Australia provided the icing on the Coalition cake in 2004, with the Liberals winning Stirling and Hasluck in the state’s capital of Perth. And while the rest of Australia seems ready to deliver an electoral thumping to the Coalition, the west is still holding up for them. It’s wealthy, rolling in cash from the mining boom, and fairly conservative. The incompetent and often-corrupt state Labor Government hasn’t helped. As such, it has Labor’s only two really vulnerable seats at this election, Swan and Cowan. On current polling, though, Labor is likely to hold both and win back their 2004 losses as well.

The Territories

The Australian Capital Territory has two seats, both safe Labor. The Northern Territory has two seats, one (which takes up 99% of its area) is safe Labor, while the other is marginal CLP. That is the Darwin-based seat of Solomon, held by colourful MP David Tollner. He’s popular, but the ALP can have reasonable hopes of knocking him over.

SENATE

The Senate is going to be interesting this time because of the likely defeat of the remaining four Democrats. Independents usually struggle to win Senate seats, so there’s four seats up for grabs among the major parties, the Greens, Family First, and possibly someone else. While the Senate gets less attention than the House, a result like the Greens winning the balance of power would be hugely significant, changing the shape of politics in Australia.

In conservative Queensland, the Coalition normally wins three Senators and the ALP two. In 2004, there was a major upset with the Coalition winning four – giving John Howard his Senate majority. This doesn’t look like being repeated – it is unlikely that the Coalition will poll well enough to win four seats. It is also not likely that the ALP will poll well enough to win three, although with Kevin Rudd the vote may just be high enough. Therefore, the sixth seat is a likely gain for either the Greens, Family First or Pauline Hanson. Both minor parties would really like that seat - it would be a major coup for the Greens to elect a Senator in such a conservative state as Queensland, and Family First has a good chance for that same reason. Hanson failed in win in 2004, but with a new party behind her she may just make up the votes. The race will be intense.

Western Australia has three Coalition and two ALP Senators facing re-election. It has already elected one Green Senator at the Democrat’s expense last time, and so the sixth seat here is a likely Green gain unless the ALP can pull through. The incumbent Democrat is not re-contesting.

South Australia has become very interesting recently with colourful independent State MP Nick Xenohpon throwing his hat into the ring. He’s managed to win an Upper House seat on proportional representation, which is hard for an independent, and won a massive 23% of the vote at the last election. South Australia has also been the Democrats’ strongest state, but the retirement of their incumbent, Natasha Stott-Despoja, has been a severe blow – she was the favourite among the Democrats to win. Family First will also have an eye on a seat, South Australia being its home state, and the Greens and ALP will also be competitive. Also facing election are three Coalition and two ALP Senators.

The ALP will no doubt want to avoid the disastrous preference deal that delivered the sixth Senate seat in Victoria to Family First in 2004. As such, I’d say the sixth seat will be a Green (probably) or ALP gain. Another odd possibility is the obscure Democratic Labor Party. It has no power base outside Victoria and will struggle to win a Federal Senate seat even in the state, but strange things have happened before.

The race in New South Wales looked like it would take on a new dimension with the decision of Peter Andren, MHR for Calare, to run for the Senate after his House seat was redistributed out from under him. In August, however, he was diagnosed with cancer and withdrew from the race [Edit: and to great shock, died yesterday. He was very popular and is sorely missed]. New South Wales also has a Green Senator facing re-election in the form of Kerry Nettle. The Greens failed to win a Senate seat in New South Wales in 2004, and it’s possible that Nettle will loose her seat. If Nettle doesn’t win the sixth seat, we can’t discount the Reverend Fred Nile and his Christian Democratic Party, who came fairly close in 2004.

[Túrin Turambar]

Weekly Update (Penultimate edition)

End of week 4 – 2 weeks to go

• First, and most importantly, interest rates rose by 0.25%. They’re now at 6.75%, and 11-year high. This is terrible news for the Government (not to mention the timing), which has relied heavily on low interest rates as a campaign plank.
• The National Party campaign has been very low-key, but Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile has recently been sighted skateboarding around in the marginal Labor seat of Richmond with his baseball cap on backwards. Commentators have suggested that this may be some attempt to reach out to the youth vote, which is heavily favouring Labor. I think that he should have set a better example by wearing a helmet.
• The coffee bean poll is once again open, having successfully predicted the result of the last five elections.
• For some inexplicable reason, the plane to fly the PM’s media following around has been acquired from Croatia.
• John Howard’s popularity took a hit when he was unable to control his anger at a Labor voter:
  
  
  
  Full story here
• Former Labor leader Mark Latham has once again hit out at his own party, claiming that this is a ‘Seinfeld’ election where two conservative parties play to voters’ greed. Latham, who learned his speaking and debating skills from Paul Keating, has a reputation for being a firebrand (he once called the Prime Minister an ‘arselicker’ in Parliament). His erratic behaviour is widely considered to be a significant factor in Labor’s heavy 2004 loss, and he has launched several vicious attacks on the ALP since he left politics. This will probably only serve to help the Coalition, as will Paul Keating’s own jabs at the Rudd-led Labor Party earlier in the year (he said that Rudd was surrounded by ‘proven failures’ who were ‘scared of their own shadow’ and ‘won’t get out of bed in the morning unless they have a focus group report telling them which side to get up on’).

[Túrin Turambar]

Weekly Update (ultimate edition!)

End of week 5 – 1 week to go!

Both major parties launched their campaigns for this week. Nothing new or radical from either – caution is still prevailing.

• The Coalition promised to spend a lot of money on various things, which has caused concerns about inflation and interest rates. John Howard (who doesn’t seem to do the big, dramatic speech thing that well) emphasized his belief in small business, the family, the individual and the ‘values of old Australia’. His conservative credentials are already rock-solid, but I suppose giving them a boost can’t hurt. The ABC’s comedy team ‘The Chaser’ was apprehended trying to get into the venue to ‘redecorate’.
• The ALP’s launch was fairly similar. Education was a big winner, and Kevin Rudd affirmed Labor’s commitment to pull Australian forces from Iraq. He seems to be using fewer clichés these days, which is a good sign.
• Comparisons with the 1997 U.K. election are floating around.
• The Coalition has promised to help save the orangutans. Labor supporters were quick to point out that it wasn’t necessary - Wilson Tuckey’s seat is very safe and Senator Bill Heffernan isn’t even up for re-election this year .
• A whole lot of weird and soap-operaish stuff is going on in Wentworth.

Photo of the week featuring Health Minister Tony Abbott:

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Getting close, eh, Lord M? Have you decided how you are going to vote?

I notice you haven't said anything about referendums or propositions or anything like that. Here in California (and presumably in most US states) we have a proliferation of them. Do you not have them there? (Or did I just miss it?)

[Túrin Turambar]

I notice you haven't said anything about referendums or propositions or anything like that. Here in California (and presumably in most US states) we have a proliferation of them. Do you not have them there? (Or did I just miss it?)

Generally not. Referenda in Australia are mandatory to amend the Federal Constitution, needed to amend State Constitutions in some cases and are sometimes put up in other circumstances (we borrowed the idea from the Swiss). They’re often not held concurrently with a general election, and we have nowhere near the number of referenda the United States. That’s a product of the United States’ strong, even radical, democratic tradition, which the Commonwealth lacks.

The number of elections is another aspect of that. In Australia, as in Canada, federal, state and local elections are held separately, and there are far fewer ballot papers to mark. I’ll only need to mark two on Saturday – one for the House, one for the Senate. A Canadian would need to mark only one (as their Senate is appointed rather than elected). We obviously have no President, our Governors are appointed rather than elected, we don’t elect judges, and executive positions are never directly elected (local mayors are the exception).

Also, I’m still after predictions. I’ll make mine soon, and I’m looking to win by default…

[Impenitent]

Predictions? I predict a Labor win in a close election - maybe 5 - 10 seat majority at the most.

I also have a niggly suspicion that the Greens are going to be stronger than they are credited; the environmental issues are really biting.

[Túrin Turambar]

Predictions? I predict a Labor win in a close election - maybe 5 - 10 seat majority at the most.

I suppose I should come out with my own prediction – Labor to gain 30 seats. Final House of Representatives will be 90 Labor and 60 everyone else for a Labor majority of 15. That would, incidentally, match Bob Hawke’s 1983 win exactly.

In general, elections where Governments change are rarely close.

I’ll make a Senate prediction later.

I also have a niggly suspicion that the Greens are going to be stronger than they are credited; the environmental issues are really biting.

The Green vote will probably rise. They’re looking especially good in southern Tasmania, their traditional stronghold, and in several inner-city seats. Still, Labor has almost monopolized the left-of-centre vote. Even people far to the left of Kevin Rudd are still planning on voting Labor, especially in key seats. There seems to be some sort of movement to deliver Bennelong to Maxine McKew on primary votes, for example. If 2010 sees a Rudd Government facing re-election, though, I expect the Greens to really break out.

In other news, Kevin Rudd has outlined his five top priorities if he wins office:
1. Ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
2. Negotiate with states to reform the hospital system.
3. Begin roll-out of high-speed broadband network and connections to schools.
4. Upgrade trade training centres in secondary schools.
5. Begin negotiations with U.S. and Iraq for staged withdrawal of Australian combat troops by mid-next year.

Oh, and I forgot to answer this:

Have you decided how you are going to vote?

I’ll probably give the LDP (Libertarian party) my first-preference vote in both houses. I’m actually starting to lean towards voting Labor ahead of the Coalition, though. It’s surprising, given that I’ve always been a big supporter of the Howard Government, but the last two or so weeks have started to make me change my mind.

I’m especially worried by the fact that this so-called ‘conservative’ Government seems to have resorted to handing out money to try and win, and I think that they’re coming across as increasingly desperate with their anti-union campaign. I’m impressed with Labor’s policies regarding infrastructure and education, and I prefer their Air Force policy to the Coalition’s (Labor wants to buy the F-22, the Coalition the Joint Strike Fighter). Kevin Rudd is practically a right-winger, anyway, and I have no real concerns about him on the key (for me) issues of the economy and national security.

In the Senate, I’ll probably vote below the line and give my second preference to Democratic Senator Andrew Bartlett, just because I’d like to see at least one Democrat remain in the Senate and he’s their best chance. I also like his blog. Might vote for the LNP joint ticket ahead of Labor to balance things, out, though.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It's interesting to see such a different system to what I am used to at work.

[Túrin Turambar]

Anyway, I might shift over to more regular, even daily, updates now that the campaign has intensified.

Also:

• This week’s Newspoll, the second last before the election, shows Labor leading the 2PP 54-46. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday all of the major pollsters will release their final polls, which have large samples and are usually quite accurate. In other news, polls in the safe Liberal seat of North Sydney are neck-and-neck.
• It seems that a man who has been appearing in Labor’s ads as a tradesman is actually a Robbie Williams impersonator.
• Kevin Rudd remains popular. So popular, in fact, that a teenaged girl fainted after meeting him.

I also just remembered I promised everyone some cartoons. I’ve been slack, but here’s Bill Leak showing us how the Coalition front bench is in low spirits.



I’m also posting my belated summary on the leaders. There’s far more to say about John Howard – this election is, more than anything, about him.

LEADERS

John Howard (born 1939) is the member for Bennelong in Sydney, New South Wales. A lawyer by trade, he came from a fairly humble background. In 1968 he tried and failed to win a seat in the New South Wales State Parliament, but won the Federal seat of Bennelong in 1974, during the dying years of the Whitlam Labor Government. He became Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs in the Fraser Coalition Government, and then became Treasurer and deputy leader of the Liberal Party in 1977. The Fraser Government was defeated in 1983, and Howard became Opposition Leader in 1984. Defeated in the 1987 election, his party kicked him back to the backbench in 1989. His political career was believed to be over. In 1995, though, they invited him back, having no-one else to replace the hapless Alexander Downer. He defeated the Keating Labor Government in March 1996, and aided by a strong economy and a weak opposition he has been Prime Minister ever since (making him the second longest-serving). Despite his influence, there is very little serious scholarship on Howard, with most books written on him amounting to little more than near-hysterical attacks by his opponents (God Under Howard depicts him on the cover as a pitchfork-wielding puritan).

Howard is, both politically and personally, a staunch conservative. His ideological position has not changed since the 60s – he has defended traditional values against what he sees as a culture of permissiveness, believed in neo-liberal economics long before it became popular and is a known skeptic of multiculturalism and a strong defender of tough border protection (“We shall decide who comes into this country and the circumstances in which they come!”). Dismissed for years as an unelectable nerd, reactionary who wanted to drag Australia back into the 1950s or simply a right-wing crank, he underwent something of a political and personal makeover in the early 90s (and his positions started to become popular and accepted with the advent of Thatcher and Reagan). His 1996 campaign slogan (‘For all of us’) reflects his approach – he claims to represent the everyday suburban Australian family. Since 9/11, has tied Australia’s foreign policy closely to that of the Bush Administration. He is intelligent, and something of a policy wonk – he was writing out elaborate plans for tax reform decades before he was able to implement them. He is not charismatic, but has been popular with people identifying with him as an ‘everyman’. He is a strong performer in Parliament (important for being a leader in the Westminster system) but is not a great rhetorician and often avoids debating his critics in the media or in the street.

Most importantly, he speaks simply and directly, often reflecting the views of ‘Middle Australia’ in his speeches and comments on an issue. He widely uses talkback radio to speak directly to the people. He is a formidable politician who has been underestimated again and again by his opponents.

Many Australian conservatives consider him to be the country’s greatest-ever Prime Minister. Of all world leaders, he has the most claim on the legacy of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and his fiscal discipline, tight and disciplined Government, hard line on illegal immigration and terrorism and social conservatism without overtones of religious fundamentalism make him widely admired among conservatives both in Australia and abroad. His views on Islamic extremism were quoted with approval by Rush Limbaugh. At one stage, he was more popular among Republicans than every 2008 Presidential candidate bar Rudy Giuliani. The U.K. Conservative Party based their 2005 campaign on his model. When Stephen Harper became the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Steyn hoped that he would turn out to be like John Howard.

The left hates him with a passion, and he has picked up a number of nicknames over the years – some scatological, some pertaining to bodily orifices, and some just plain nasty.

Mungo MacCallum (Australia’s Michael Moore, only with a sharper wit) is a good (and entertaining) example. His favourite nickname for John Howard is ‘the Stonefish’:

t captures the essence of the man, both in his lack of personal appeal; and his success as a politician. The stonefish is a sluggish and rather stupid predator with neither flair nor dash; it waits for its prey to come to it and then kills by treachery. And, time after time, it gets away with it. The secret, of course, is in its appearance: as the name implies it resembles a rock resting in the sand of the sea bed, totally harmless and ordinary, even boring. But behind the innocuous disguise is one of the most poisonous and lethal creatures on earth. The trouble is that by the time the victim realises the trouble he’s in, it’s too late; he is already at best stupidified and at worst beyond help.

He adds a more detailed commentary:

[Howard], posing always as a modest conservative, has dealt destruction to the Australian tradition on an extraordinary scale, transforming the country in less than a decade from an open and generous nation, tolerant and optimistic in its role as a respected member of the world community, into a selfish and timid appendage of a crusading superpower caught up in the superstition of Armageddon and apparently quite happy to cooperate in bringing it about. In the process the public service has been drained of its independence, the judiciary seriously undermined, the national parliament reduced to a farce and the office of the prime minister, once regarded as no more than the first among equals, turned into an unaccountable commissariat ruling by absolute fiat.

In much of this devastation Howard has been aided by a cowed and incompetent political opposition and some smug and acquiescent media. But this does not excuse or explain the way the Australian public, notoriously disrespectful of politicians as a class and sceptical about both their warnings and their promises, has continually returned him to power. The alternative may not have been madly attractive, but surely it has had more to offer than the dishonesty, the meanness, the divisiveness and the simple nastiness of the Howard régime.

Both quotes from Run, Johnny, Run: An Account of the 2004 Election.

Some of the criticism has been quite extraordinary. Take this speech from left-wing MP Anthony Albanese, given in Parliament in 1998. It goes for pages and pages, so I’ve trimmed it down:

You can trim the eyebrows; you can cap the teeth; you can cut the hair; you can put on different glasses; you can give him a ewe’s milk facial, for all I care; but, to paraphrase a gritty Australian saying, ‘Same stuff, different bucket.’ In the pantheon of chinless blue bloods and suburban accountants that makes up the Australian Liberal Party, this bloke is truly one out of the box. You have to go back to Billy McMahon to find a Prime Minister who even approaches this one for petulance, pettiness and sheer grinding inadequacy.
[…]

In John Howard, here also is a man, small in every sense. Some have said that he is the worst Prime Minister since Billy McMahon. That is unfair to Billy McMahon. I am one of the few people who have opened up and read David Barnett’s biography of John Howard. I have to admit I have not read it all, because it is impossible to stay awake. […]

But the gulf, Mr Deputy Speaker, between the man in his mind—the phlegmatic, proud old English bulldog—the Winston of John Winston Howard—and the nervous, jerky, whiny apparition that we all see on the box every night. When he looks on the box he gets to see what we see—not the masterful orator of his mind but the whingey kid in his sandpit. Spare a thought for us, Mr Deputy Speaker, because we have to watch this performance every day—the chin and top lip jutting out in ‘full duck mode’. We get this every day because this is a man in refuge from himself and from the rest of Australia. […]

We do not hear about the future of this nation when we listen to this Prime Minister. In every performance all we get are his life’s grievances. All we get is the accumulated bitterness and bile of 13 long years in opposition and the people he blames for keeping him there. John Winston Howard grew up in the inner west of Sydney. His father owned a service station on the corner of the street where I now live. These were the halcyon days of little Winston’s life—when the working classes knew their place and when all migrants were British. Lucky John Winston Howard moved further north, across the harbour; he certainly would not be comfortable living in the inner west of Sydney any more. A bit too much change for his lifetime. […]

Here is a man who lived at home until he was 32. You can imagine what he was like. Here were young Australians demonstrating against the Vietnam War, listening to the Doors, driving their tie-died kombi vans, and what was John Howard doing? He was at home with mum, wearing his shorts and long white socks, listening to Pat Boone albums and waiting for the Saturday night church dance. Yes, it all started to go wrong back in the 1960s. Radical and sinister notions of equality for women, world peace and, dare I say it, citizenship rights for indigenous Australians. So what do we hear when we listen to John Winston Howard today? We hear the hatred and resentment in his voice—the sort of hatred and resentment we saw at the reconciliation conference last year—hatred and resentment from a man who was never part of the scene, who was not accepted, for whom a different life was too big a leap and who took refuge in a previous generation. You can see it in his instinctive hatred of any progression, and he sees it everywhere—policies of social inclusion, multiculturalism, women’s liberation, Aboriginal reconciliation. In all of them, he only ever sees the jump he was too weak to make decades ago. Now he wants the whole nation to stay back and keep him company. […]

He is positively Orwellian in his pettiness. This is a smallness of mind, a meanness with breathtaking scope. I can just imagine his enormous pride at this aspect. […] We have a man leading this country who is prepared always to go out of his way to insult people he does not like, but not with the courage to come out and say it but do it sneakily. Weakly and sneakily. Weaseling around the point. […]

This is the man we have leading this country —yesterday’s man, a weak man, a little man, a man without courage and a man without vision. This is Billy McMahon in short pants. This is the man who has brought the full force of his personality to bear on Australia. Australia is now learning what it is like to live life through John Howard’s eyes. This is the man whose only aim in the end— for getting the prime ministership—was to pay back all those who had tried to stop him along the way. […] Australians deserve a courageous leader; they do not deserve the kind of leader that used to dob on them in the schoolyard. They do not deserve John Winston Howard and in time they will put him out to pasture. Roll on that day, come the federal election.

Howard was, of course, returned at that Federal election. And the next, and the next…

Lynton Crosby (Australia’s Karl Rove) tries to explain why. He presents a positive picture in this article in the U.K. Daily Telegraph:

John Howard implements unpopular policies and makes them popular. That's leadership

By Lynton Crosby
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 06/08/2006

The former Australian Test cricket captain, Mark Taylor, once described Prime Minister John Howard as a "cricket tragic" because of his obsession with every last detail of the sport.

Howard acknowledged it as a fair description. I reckon it would be fair to describe him, in the same good-natured way, as a "politics tragic" too. Howard lives and breathes his job.

He believes politics is a noble profession and a worthy vocation. He practises his art every day, using it to try to make the nation and people's lives better.

An interviewer recently asked me about his success, expressing some puzzlement that this man - who, he said, was "hardly charismatic" - could continue, after 10 years in the job, to be so "on top of his game". (Sorry about all the sporting references but, hey, I'm Australian: wait for the Ashes series!)

It is not the first time that someone has claimed that our PM lacks charisma, but I think they are making a big mistake. Howard is certainly no glamour puss.

He eschews the notion of celebrity and you rarely see him in the social pages or surrounded by "luvvies". Yet when you observe the way the public respond to him in the street, or in the community meetings he regularly attends in city halls, public parks or school gymnasiums around the nation, you see his capacity to connect with people. That to me is true charisma: a capacity to engage and to motivate and to lead people in difficult or uncertain circumstances.

This capacity to connect has been reflected in other ways. When Australians felt the impact of terrorism on their doorstep in Bali, he flew to the island and metaphorically and physically embraced the survivors and the families of victims.

When the wrong corpse of an Australian soldier killed in the Middle East was repatriated to Australia, the dead man's understandably distraught widow was able to ring him, get him out of bed and let him know exactly how she felt. She didn't hold back and he didn't try to stop her. John Howard is not cocooned.

This connection is the foundation of his political success. He understands people and engages with them. This means that he has built up political capital which he can then spend when he needs to take a tough decision.

And he has made plenty of tough calls. Gun law reform to ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons is not something you would expect from the conservative side of the fence. Yet he acted to ban these weapons - not something you could imagine his friend George W Bush doing.

Taking Australia into the Iraq war was not an easy undertaking, either. But, persuaded that it was in the country's interests, he put his case to his colleagues, listened to their concerns and then made a decision.

No one in his parliamentary party voted against him. He works hard to build coalitions and keep his party as a broad church, allowing all viewpoints to be expressed. He learnt the importance of this when he presided over a divided party in the 1980s. Factional differences held it back: it was self-absorbed instead of externally focused.

Reforming taxation by broadening the base with the introduction of a Goods and Services Tax (like your VAT) was a big call. I remember when he rang me, as his campaign director, to let me know he wanted to consider it. All I could think of was Sir Humphrey in Yes, Prime Minister: "Very courageous, Prime Minister!"

Many of these things did not pass the superficial political popularity test. Yet he has done them, and not only retained his support base but enhanced it. Why is this? Because he is not only a leader, he is a leader who takes nothing for granted.

I am sure that when he gets up for his walk each morning - a ritual he practises day in, day out wherever he is, at home or abroad - he pinches himself that he is prime minister at all, let alone one who has served for more than 10 years.

Life has not always been easy for John Howard. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, few people, himself included, would have believed that he would become prime minister at all. He had run for leadership of the Liberal Party three times.

Only once before had he made it to a general election. That was in 1987, when he was soundly defeated. He lost the leadership in 1989 when he was nobbled by his own colleagues, and the party, midway through 13 years of opposition, was racked by division. It was a humbling experience.

When asked whether he would ever again be leader, he laughed, describing the thought of him rising from the political dead as tantamount to "Lazarus with a triple bypass".

Almost a decade later, defeat after defeat forced the Liberal Party to unite. With voters disillusioned with the elitism and arrogance of an out-of-touch Labour government and wanting a clear alternative, it was Howard who was recalled by his Liberal colleagues. He won a near-record majority. The personal qualities evident then are still obvious today.

First and foremost is his determination. John Howard simply never gives up. That is probably not surprising for someone who had to work hard as a kid in the small business owned by his parents. Not surprising, either, for someone, who from a young age wore a hearing aid because of deafness. He simply does not let these things stand in his way.

Australians are attracted by his consistency. They know where he stands. He has been in public life for more than 30 years and his steadfastness reassures them. It has given him gravitas. He also conducts himself well. He doesn't leave anything to chance. He is a professional politician and proud of it - and demands the same from colleagues and staff.

So after not expecting to be prime minister he found himself in the post. He decided to do something with the opportunity he was given. John Howard has changed Australia, overwhelmingly for the better in my opinion, by the leadership he has given.

Becoming prime minister for him was just the means to an end, not an end in itself. He is as ambitious as anyone in his position would be, but he is ambitious for the nation, too.

In 2001 when the nation's borders were under threat from people smugglers, he turned around a ship of illegal immigrants, mindful of the prospect of external criticism. For Howard's critics this was an issue of race, whereas he knew that, for Australians, it was an issue of national sovereignty and empowerment. He did what he believed right for his country.

The bedrock, though, on which all his policies stand is his commitment to a strong economy. Howard believes that the government's economic competence is critical to his electoral fortunes.

But he knows there is always more to be done and recently set out his priorities for the future. He reckons that if you don't move forward you fall behind.

The world is always changing and to stand still means to be passed by. So he remains an advocate of continual reform: in national security; in economic modernisation; in the provision of services to an ageing society; in the development of natural resources; in the management of energy and water needs.

I have been fortunate to meet many political leaders in many parts of the world. John Howard is the least affected by his office.

Even after he became prime minister and I was the federal director of the Liberal Party, he would apologise for calling me during the weekend. He would ask whether it was convenient to talk. He has always shown that kind of courtesy, and he extends it to everyone. It is not a stunt, it's just him.

There is no doubt he has become more relaxed and comfortable in his role. After shrugging off those early political disappointments, he doesn't have anything to prove. But he knows that he has plenty to do and, given his public and political support, a real opportunity to do it.

There is one more key point that needs to be acknowledged. Over 10 years as Prime Minister, in an era of war and terrorism that has necessitated intense involvement with the likes of George W Bush and Tony Blair, he has learned how to manage very large issues on the one hand and the day-to-day demands of Westminster-style politics and media on the other.

When you think about it, many leaders fail by being unable to do both at the same time. And so he endures. It is too early to talk about his legacy because I think there are important things to come. But whatever way history judges him, John Howard will remain a model for anyone with a desire to lead.

Lynton Crosby is Joint Managing Director of Crosby/Textor, an Australia and London based polling and strategic communications company, and was John Howard's campaign director at the 1998 and 2001 general elections.

As departing Labor leader Kim Beazley noted he is a dangerous opponent, and it will take a skilled Labor leader to bring him down.

Could it be Kevin Rudd?

Born in 1957, he is the member for Griffith in Brisbane, Queensland. He is a member of the right-wing faction of the ALP, and is known for being a conservative Christian and a strong supporter of the Australian-U.S. Alliance. It will be impossible to paint him as a left-wing extremist. He came from a humble background, was a diplomat for many years, then worked in the Premier’s Department of the Goss Government in Queensland. He ran as the Labor member for the seat of Griffith in 1996 and lost on the back of the massive pro-Howard swing. He tried again and won the seat in 1998 as Labor recovered. He became Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, a position he held until he became party leader.

Rudd’s rise has been remarkable. He’s has been running around the countryside, giving cooking and dancing lessons on TV, offering marriage advice, appearing on FM radio stations to answer trivia questions about Britney Spears, speaking in schools, and generally smiling, glowing and talking in his typical contorted, metaphor-laden and cliché-ridden Queensland style. People seem to love him for it, and his performance in the polls has been stellar. On the whole, though, he’s just as much of a nerd as Howard, simply a more animated one. This might actually be a plus for him, especially given the preference the electorate has shown over the past twelve years.